A Single Stray Thought
by Frostwind523
Summary: ...I'm kind of a voice in your head. You're not insane though! I realize it can sound that way, but I promise, you're not!... Noctis rolled his eyes. Like that was reassuring. Or: Vera is inexplicably trapped as a voice in the head of one Noctis Lucis Caelum, the protagonist of a game she hasn't played since it came out a few years ago. Hopefully, things can go better this time.


Hello! Chromascuro here. This isn't my first fic, but it's the first one that I feel comfortable posting and having it be critiqued. Though I have improved significantly in my writing since I first started, I know I can get better, and I really want to improve my craft, so if you would like, please leave a review. Thank you!

When I awoke, something had changed about my bed. I felt the sheets and the mattress below me. Oh my goodness, how was it possible for a bed to be this comfortable? My bed in the apartment I shared with my sister had a mattress that was shameful in comparison. That was strange. The weight of the blankets was different. My bed had heavy quilts piled on in preparation for the oncoming winter, on this one the blankets were lighter. I felt a chill run up my leg as I realized that one of my feet was sticking out from under the blanket. Reaching limbs of thought through the fog of my tired mind, I tried to command my body to move my cold foot back under the warm protection of the blanket.

Why couldn't I move?

I tried once more to move my foot. No such luck. I exerted all the mental force I could to try to get even the tiniest movement out of my toes. Again, nothing happened.

Simply splendid. Sleep paralysis. Fan-freaking-tastic.

I would get sleep paralysis on occasion, so I wasn't unfamiliar with this feeling, usually I just had to wait it out, be patient and eventually, I would regain control over my extremities. The only problem was that having no one to talk to for an extended period tends to gets dreadfully dull. In other words, I was bored out of my mind. Usually, when I woke up in the middle of the night for no reason, I could just pull out my phone and scroll through forums for a while until I either felt like going back to sleep or getting up. Sleep paralysis sure put a damper on that.

Since I had nothing else to do and no other being to speak to, I tried to remember how I had gotten into this quaint little situation. Let's see...I had left my job late that night because I had been the lucky one to be on the closing shift. I had been looking forward to procuring sleep that night because I had spent too long playing Terraria with some of my high school friends who had moved after graduation, and ended up getting to sleep at four in the morning. I locked up...nothing suspicious there, and then...nothing. My memory simply cut off. I couldn't remember the most minute detail after that. That was odd. Usually, my memory is impeccable.

Just then a thought crossed my mind. Had I been kidnapped? Who would want to kidnap me? I was just an average nobody! If I had that would explain a few things though. Like why I was in an unfamiliar bed in what most likely was an unfamiliar location. The sleep paralysis and the sudden memory cut-off? That could be explained by my kidnappers hitting me with some sort of tranquilizer drug, and it was only now starting to wear off. I internally started panicking.

Then I felt my body stir. Oh good, I could probably move again.

Just then I heard the sound of someone bursting through the door.

Oh heck. My kidnapper had shown themselves. But instead of whatever I had been expecting to happen just then, my expectations got 360 flipped completely over.

"Rise and shine princess. We're getting moving today, and you gotta get ready. We gotta be at the Citadel soon enough. Don't wanna keep your bride-to-be waiting." A gruff voice called from the doorway.

Uhhhh, what?

I felt my tired eyes blink open revealing a blank ceiling. I felt my body groan, rub my eyes, and then perform a lethargic roll to the side, swinging my legs down and sitting on the side of the impossibly comfortable bed.

My body released another resounding groan at the person in the doorway, "Go away Gladio. I can't get ready with you here." It responded in a young male voice.

Wha-Wha-What was happening?! My body! I couldn't control it!

The person in the doorway, apparently named Gladio, rolled his eyes before leaving. " Yeesh. Just get your lazy butt out of bed and get ready. Iggy made breakfast."

My body made one last grumble about getting up and stood suddenly wincing, then proceeded to a mostly empty closet. In the last part of my mind that wasn't overflowing with hysteria, I sympathized. If I had such a comfortable bed, then I would be reluctant to leave it as well.

MY BODY! **There was someone else in my body**!

Terror ripped through me like a merciless hacksaw, creating a channel allowing an entire ocean's worth of panic and anxiety to fill my psyche. I wanted to scream, to cry, to try to call out to anyone who even had the slightest chance of hearing me! HELP! HELP! SOMEONE PLEASE! **ANYONE**! Anyone!

_...please..._

I cried out. I cried out as hard as I could. No one could hear me. Not my sister Jenna, not my highschool gamer friends, and especially not the man who was occupying my body. Or was it I that was occupying his body?!

I could only watch helplessly through his eyes as he got ready for something that I did not know. I tried to focus on something else, embarrassed as he got dressed, the only thing I could do as I was forced to see everything he saw. I wasn't that kind of girl. He finished dressing and headed out of the mostly empty room. Evidently, things had been packed away recently in preparation for a move of some sort.

He arrived in a small bathroom and looked at himself wearily in the mirror. The face that stared back at me was not mine, making me cringe internally. It belonged to the body I was held a prisoner in. The face that I was trapped behind. Another shocking reminder of the bizarre situation I found myself in. He was a young man that looked in his late teens or early twenties, not that far off from what I was myself when I was inside my own frame. He had black hair in an unruly anime style and distinctive slanted blue eyes which sort of made him look Asian. I watched as he brushed his teeth and then combed his hair, then applied a generous helping of hair gel to it and precision sculpted it into very emo looking do. This guy looked like an anime protagonist, and at the same time oddly familiar. Maybe I was thinking of Sasuke from Naruto? Nah. Sasuke didn't wear tacky black cargo pants last I checked.

Anime protagonist, as I was now dubbing the person that served as my prison, left the bathroom with his emo hairstyle perfectly done. I watched mentally exhausted from my breakdown earlier as he walked down the hall and into a modest kitchen. Another man wearing glasses was there attending to a small griddle where something was cooking.

The smell of fresh pancakes wafted through the room and into my-_his_ nostrils. Oh. Pancakes. Another reminder of the bleak situation I was in. I was supposed to be _home. _Spending the morning with _my sister _and her great blueberry pancakes she would always make for me when I had a hard day. A sudden tide of grief flooded over my imprisoned psyche. I was _tired_ of this already! I wanted to go _home! __**I want to go home!**_

There were suddenly tears pricking at Anime Protagonist's eyes. He sniffed. A whining sound came from deep within his throat as the tears started streaming down his face and he fell to his knees. He rubbed his eyes blearily as he hiccuped, gazing down at the tears covering them in confusion. More tears cascaded down his cheeks as soon as he uncovered them. "What the…" he whispered.

The glasses man who was cooking looked over at me-_him_ bewildered. "Noct, are you…_crying?_"

"I dunno Iggy. My eyes just started watering all the sudden." The anime protagonist who was named Noct replied, voice croaking. He hiccuped again as he tried to stem the tears that were threatening to burst out. (Noct…Noct…why did that sound so familiar?)

Huh? This was enough to snap me out of my pancake induced breakdown for a moment. Why had Noct started crying just then? He had no reason to be sad unless he got all emotional over pancakes like I just did. _Like I just did_. I'd just realized something important. Noct _had_ no reason, unless…

...unless some of my emotions had somehow gotten _through_ to him.

Hope blossomed in my isolated mind. If I could get something through to him, then maybe I could contact him! I could get help! Or at the very least I could get someone to talk to. But how? He could feel my emotions if they were intense enough. That I knew now. Maybe he could hear me if I thought at him, and then pushed it through whatever was separating our minds? I would have to push hard. Really hard.

* * *

Noctis was confused. Something wasn't right with this morning. Ever since Gladio had barged into his room to wake him up, something was off about the way he was feeling. When he woke up he felt content, more so than he had in a long time. At first, it was nice to get a bit of relief from all the chaos that was happening in his life recently, then when he had gotten up at Gladio's insistence, he felt panicked. For what reason he wasn't sure. Then It had lessened into loneliness and grief when he was getting dressed and fixing his hair.

Then there he was bawling his eyes out over pancakes on the kitchen floor of his apartment, Ignis staring at him shocked like he was some madman, and he had no idea why he was doing it.

Ignis, obviously still unnerved by his prince's sudden display of uncharacteristic emotion, approached the young royal in some attempt at consolation. He put a comforting hand on Noctis' back while helping him to his feet and seating him on a chair next to the table.

"Are you alright Noct? If the pressure of the wedding is getting to you-" Ignis started only to get interrupted by Noctis.

"I'm fine Iggy. I told you. My eyes just started watering."

"If you say so, highness," Ignis relented, obviously still worried for the young royal. "Let me get you a plate." Ignis did just that, and soon following, Noctis had a pate of Ignis' perfect delicious pancakes in front of his face. Iggy soon after cleaned up the mess of breakfast and left the room to wait in the living area.

Another odd feeling came over him as he ate. Was that nostalgia? What about Iggy's pancakes would cause him to get nostalgic? This morning was so weird. Why was this happening so suddenly? And why today of all days? They had to get going soon. The treaty signing was tomorrow night, and he needed to get to Altissia for the wedding. Was this going to get in the way? He couldn't break down in tears out of the blue when he and his retinue were leaving, or worse, during the actual wedding itself.

_...Hello?..._

It was a small sound, almost too small to be perceived, but if he strained his focus, he could vaguely hear the quiet voice. Noctis' eyes widened as he sprang to his feet searching around the room for any sign of life, and when he could find none other than himself, he sat back down and rested his face in his hands. Great. He was hearing voices now too? He was beginning to question his sanity. Was he going off the deep end? Either that or Ignis was right and all the stress of the signings and the wedding was finally getting to him. Stress can cause weird reactions after all. Or maybe he was just thinking way too hard about this.

_...um, hey!..._

There it was again! He wished it would just leave him alone! "Who are you!?" Noctis hissed fiercely under his breath, for fear of his shield and advisor hearing him in the next room and causing Ignis to worry for his mental health even more than he probably already did.

_...Sorry for earlier, that was me…_

What was the voice talking about? It seemed to steadily get easier to make out every time he heard it.

_...Those were my emotions you're feeling. I apologize. I'm new at this…_

"New at what? What are you talking about? Where are you? **Who** are you? How am _I _feeling your emotions?"

..._I'm kind of a voice in your head. You're not insane though! I realize it can sound that way, but I promise, you're not!..._

Noctis rolled his eyes. Like that was reassuring.

_...Anyway, hello, my name is Vera. You're Noct right? I realize you must have a lot of questions and I'll try my best to answer them. For the ones you asked earlier, I'm new at the whole being a voice in someone's head thing. Not too long ago I was a person too, and as to why you can feel my emotions, I think it's because we're connected. I can see everything you see and experience everything you experience, but you're the one piloting your body…_

Wait. A person? There was a whole other person in his body now? _Sharing his body now?_ Astrals, how did this happen?

"Noct! You ready yet Princess? We need to get going!" Gladio shouted from the other room.

That thought could wait. As could this whole mess until they were out of the Crown City.


End file.
